How to get money back from a bank

I’ve written enough over the years about people who tried and failed to get money back from banks after seeing transactions on their accounts that they did not recognise. Now I’ve had to go through the process myself.

I got a refund from the NatWest after a dodgy debit appeared on the credit card my wife uses. The bank’s dispute resolution mechanism turned out to be unserviceable, but we got the money back promptly when we sued them in the small claims court. The story is, I believe, an instructive one for people interested in bank security or payment systems regulation.

I have put online the documents which tell the story. A debit of £126.51 appeared last June from “Ian Travel Services” about which there are manycomplaintsonline. My wife phoned the bank and didn’t get anywhere. So I wrote to them asking to reverse the transaction or provide evidence that it was made with our mandate.

The bank insisted that I fill out two declarations – one saying I didn’t recognise the transaction and the second saying that I hadn’t made it. When I replied that only the first of these was true and demanded evidence that the debit was made by myself or my wife, in line with the Distance Selling Directive if it were by a card-not-present transaction and otherwise by providing the relevant log entries, the reply was that MasterCard required them to obtain duly completed and signed declaration forms although “these are not legally binding” (an assertion that appears to be false). The bank said it had nonetheless asked for a copy of the voucher “through the retailers acquiring bank”.

Two months later, they got back to me and said that “the only information the retailer provided us with is that the debit relates to a transaction made through hotels.com”. I replied to them that we had received a notification from hotels.com that another of our credit cards had been compromised by the loss of a laptop by their auditors and asserted my rights under the Distance Selling Directive.

The following month they wrote back saying that “we are governed by MasterCard International, who are the governing body for credit card transactions” and had to abide by their rules, under which our complaint was now out of time. This is nonsense on stilts; my contract is with the bank, who may not debit my account without my mandate, and if the bank enters into a contract with MasterCard that prevents it from discharging its obligations to me then that’s the bank’s problem, not mine. The bank suggested i get legal advice, or go to the Citizens’ Advice Bureau, Local Trading Standards or the Financial Ombudsman Service. Now I documented the failings of the Ombudsman in an earlier post, so I decided to go straight to the heart of the matter and sue the bank in the small claims court.

The bank settled at once.

This may be entirely rational behaviour on the bank’s part. If it can fob off most complainants with tiresome call-centre procedures, or tell them they’re out of time, or pass them off on Citizen’s Advice, then it will only have to refund the minority who ignore this flummery and go to court. Even then, the bank only has to pay an extra £25 for the court fee. So now you know – suing the bank is the fastest, simplest and least-hassle way of getting your money back. I’ve come across the same phenomenon elsewhere: when Easyjet cancelled a flight, the only way I could get the compensation to which EU law entitles me was by suing them, and then getting the bailiffs to enforce the judgement. (The bailiff told me on the phone that she enforces lots of these.) Another Easyjet customer writes: suing in the County Court for small claims should be part of citizenship lessons for teenagers.

So it seems that the optimal bank complaint procedure is one letter, then a writ. But do take care that your case remains on the small claims track. In the Alain Job case, the bank persuaded the judge to move the case from the small claims track to the fast track, the effect of which was that Alain was ordered to pay the bank £15,000 in costs after he lost. If a bank tries that on you, you’d maybe better tell the judge that you’d have to abandon the case and thus your human rights would be infringed. But IANAL, this isn’t legal advice, and your mileage (as they say) may vary.

Hmm, interesting. Did Easyjet admit liability at any stge? I’m in the process of trying to claim compensation from them, they have admitted liability and twice promised to pay the money “within 15-20 days”, but so far it has not materialised. I’m wondering whether to take them to Small Claims.

(I’ve used it once before very successfully when a kitchen salesman got me to sign up and pay a deposit on the written basis that the deposit was fully refundable if I changed my mind. When I duly changed my mind, he tried to claim that there was a £150 “admin fee” that was not refundable.)

Nick:- without enough information to determine where the purchase was made, there is no way for Mr. Anderson to know for sure whether or not he approved the transaction. This would be true for anyone, unless they recorded every transaction they made on the card.

John – the 2nd declaration requires you to categorically state that you did not make the transaction.

Since Ross was unable to ascertain that neither he nor his wife definitely didn’t make the transaction (since some firms don’t appear under their own name on your CC bill,) if he signed it and it turned out that either of them had in fact made a genuine purchase, then he’d be signing a false declaration, with any repercussions associated with such an act.

Put simply Ross didn’t have enough information to categorically sign it truthfully – indeed, he asked for paperwork to determine exactly where the transaction took place (which was not forthcoming,) to determine it.

Matt – all they refunded was the initial charge on the card, the late charges, and the court fee – they refused to even pay the interest on the disputed amount for the period it was disputed for. (£5.51)

Ross, sorry to hear about your woes and I’m pleased you found a way to sort it out.

Unfortunately, when bank departments have inappropriate metrics measuring their success (minimise disputes paid), rather than ones that improve the overall profitability of the bank (retaining happy customers who are impressed with your integrity), we see this type of stupidity.

bear in mind that if you live in Scotland, the majority of UK banks do not recognise the Scottish legal system – which is pretty appalling that someone living in Shetland would have to travel 600 miles to the nearest English courtroom.

The Scottish legal system has different thresholds for small claims and different measure of acceptable evidence.

In countries like the UK and Canada, with just a handful of national banks, and unlike the US, with little “mom & pop” banks everywhere to choose from, there is a real fear that if you make trouble you may find yourself with no bank account at all. Like Internet access, access to the banking system is a defacto necessity of life, but not one that is legislated.

Not just the £25: by the time it had gone to a small claims court you could have charged 8% statutory rate intrest on the money that was taken from you, too. On a sum of the size you indicated, on the timescales we’re talking about, this wouldn’t have been more than a few pounds, but it’s these few pounds that penalise the banks for allowing these kinds of mistakes to happen in the first place.

Tony H. – access to a bank account is not far off being legislated, at least in the UK: a story in the Times from just last week discusses it (link is in this blog post) Need a bank account? Its yours

But you are right, there is a fear that the banks won’t touch you. I’d like to see them turn down a customer that walked in with valid funds and a good FICO score though! Bank managers with bonuses aren’t that short sighted I hope.

Scatman Dan – the 8% was put on the claim form (the aforementioned £5.51)

Natwest refused to pay it, paying back only the original disputed charge, the late payment fee charged, and the court costs.

In the words of Natwest, in the pdf:

“No interest has been charged on the disputed £126.51 and therefore the £5.51 will not be payable.”

It would appear that Natwest are (deliberately?) under the impression that the interest mentioned on the claim form is interest that Natwest charged on the amount, and not the 8% due under these circumstances.

I don’t think Ross’s experience will recur, because since November 2009 you now have up to 13 months to query a transaction – no matter what MasterCard bylaws state.http://www.moneymadeclear.fsa.gov.uk/products/credit_cards/credit_cards_getting_help.html
reproduced verbatim below :
“If there is an unauthorised transaction on your credit card account you should dispute it without undue delay (and no later than 13 months after the transaction).
It is for the bank, building society or credit card company to show that the transaction was made by you and there was no breakdown in procedures or technical difficulty.
If you’ve not authorised the payment then your credit card company must immediately refund you the transaction amount unless they have some evidence suggesting you may not be entitled to a refund because of the way you have acted. In these cases the credit card company must investigate the claim, but must do so as quickly as possible.”
Banks & Credit Card companies now have to keep all the data readily available for 13 months, just in case you make a claim a year later. They can’t claim they no longer have any records of the event. If they didn’t keep any records, then since they can’t prove their case – you win.

@Nick James
Presumably Ross, like myself, cannot account for every single transaction on his bank statement. It follows that he cannot assert that he absolutely did not make a transaction, but he can still be suspicious about it.

just checking a message regarding receiving your money back on a cancelled flight by easy jet which we were informed on the 17/02/2010 that our money was being processed back into our bank account within 15-20 working days. So far sent emails on numerous occasions as you cannot contact them by phone still same reply its being processed amount owed is approx 1,035.00. The flights were booked well in advance for June 2010 to Spain .Can you help in how to get the money back quickly as needed to book new flights and not with Easy Jet.

Susan Hartley: “Can you help in how to get the money back quickly as needed to book new flights and not with Easy Jet.”

Tell them (in writing) that they have had twice the 15 days they quoted, and unless the money is in your bank account within fourteen calendar days you will sue in the Small Claims Court. Give them an extra day, then do so, at
. However, it will take several more weeks (unless they cough up at the threat).

Susan Hartley: “Can you help in how to get the money back quickly as needed to book new flights and not with Easy Jet.”

Tell them (in writing) that they have had twice the 15 days they quoted, and unless the money is in your bank account within fourteen calendar days you will sue in the Small Claims Court. Give them an extra day, then do so, athttp://www.moneyclaim.gov.uk/. However, it will take several more weeks (unless they cough up at the threat).

You are required by the court to “make a reasonable attempt to resolve” before entering in to legal action.

The rules are a bit fuzzy but there are a number of things you can claim for such as “your time” (about 10GBP/hour) “postage” “transportation” and a few other bits and bobs that can IF you keep records mount up.

The most important thing to remember is “if it ain’t writen down it never happened” so each and every time you make a phone call make a not of when it started how long if they dropped the call who you spoke to what was said etc and when the call finished.

By all means record the conversation BUT you are required by law to tell them you will be keeping a record of the conversation, and the tape recording is usually not admissable. However if you write it all down word for word immediatly afterwards and sign and date it, stating it is a true record of the conversation it becomes a legitimate record that is usually admisable.

Judges/adjudicators like paperwork, they like it well organised and indexed and easy to read the also like overviews and time lines.

The better prepared you are the easier it will be for you to present your case with confidence and professionalism. And also to defend it against cross questioning from the defendant or their representative. (There is nothing worse than ruffling slowly through pages of information to find the one document you need SO INDEX EVERYTHING).

If you don’t have a piece of paper for an event, then put in a piece of paper in a different colour and write on it what it represents, and why you don’t have it (ie the defendent has held back evidence such as the signed voucher for a transaction).

Also remember you are “telling a story” not “regurgitating dry details”. You should be able to state what your grevence is in a sentance and an overview of your case in a paragraph.

If you can not, how do you expect a busy judge to get their head around it quickly so that they have a skeleton to flesh out as you give the rest of your evidence (remember they are human just like you 😉

And always alway watch out for the defendants representatives asking multiple questions as one or spurious argument. If you don’t understand a question or statment by them break it down and feed it back to them bit by bit or get them to repeate it bit by bit, and if you think it’s spurious actually ask them why they think it is relavant.

You actually get a lot more leeway in a SCC than you do in other courts, simply because you are expected to represent yourself.

This also means that you can speak “plainly” (but always politly) and if a word, phrase or statment is used that you don’t understand then say so and ask for it to be explained “plainly”.

Also remember that the Data Protection legislation acts in your favour, when the defending organisation does not provide paperwork. Any data pertaining to your case is going to be held in some sort of “database” (and paper records are included in this) as a “data subject” you have rights to have copies of all paperwork relating to you… And they have a little over a month to produce from receiving a compleated application (and where required payment) or they are in breach which is effectivly a crime…

Oh and if you make a payment for the copying of records etc use a cheque and write on the back of it that it is only to be used for that specific purpose. Also put in the acompanying letter it is only to be used for that specific purpose and no other. Debt collection agencies just love to take the money “as part payment on the debt” and as “proof that you owe the debt”…

Oh and above all don’t get to stressed out about it, get a friend to go through your case with you and rehearse before hand.

The simple fact remains that had Ross actually signed the form to state he had not incurred the charge then the bank would have immediately refunded the transaction. This occurs everyday in many different banks up and down the country. usual practice is you sign declarations stating it is fraudulent use and they automatically refund you (Generally for any sum below £150). The fact that you felt you “couldn’t” sign the form meant you had to wait ages and prolong the process further. If you dont feel you can 100% say that it wasn’t your charge then don’t claim it back. Sign the form like you should have done and there would have been no problem.

It’s even worse than that, PJH. Signing the first statement, to say that he didn’t recognise the transaction, renders any answer to the second question untrue – regardless of whether or not the transaction was fraudulent.

Effectively, the bank is saying “We will only give you a refund if you perjure yourself.”

I’ve just noticed that although the dispute was settled on the basis that no interest had been charged, the bank did charge me £16.10 in March and £5.23 in April, despite the fact that I settle my bill in full every month. I presume some software glitch that got triggered by the repayment they made in settlement. I’ve written to them. Let’s see whether we have to sue them again; with luck they may have flagged my account to be dealt with only by someone clueful!

This is a really instructive case, because I have a very similar issue with my bank here in Pakistan. And they are taking ages to resolve this. I have gone to the Ombudsman but they are just waiting and waiting for the bank to finish their investigation which is just dragging.
Since the laws are very similar to England, I am thinking about going to the courts to get this matter sorted out.
Thanks for the post.
Ali

Please i need assistance
I went to my bank to transfer and withdraw some while my new card been dispatch to me
The bank refused any requested transactions… Took and hold and refused to give it back to me.. They called the police who came and told them it was a genuine passport and needed to be resttituted.. I walked in at 3.30and left the bank at 19.11with no money… Humiliated… Penniless.. Rent need to be pay.. Food is needed for my child and travel to work have to be pay
Can u help

HI I HAVE BEEN A VICTIM OF ON LINE FRAUD, I HAD A STOP PUT ON THE PAYMENT AND PAID £25 FOR THE RETURN OF MY MONEY £4500 THE NATWEST BANK STOP THE PAYMENT BUT WILL NOT RETURN MY MONEY THEY SAY THEY NEED THE PERMISSION OF THE FRAUDSTER BEFORE THE MONEY CAN BE RETURN. AND THAT I MAY NEVER GET IT BACK. WHAT A WONDERFUL BANK. I AM A 74 YEAR OLD DISABLED PERSON AND IT TOOK ME OVER A YEAR TO SAVE THIS MONEY, ANY ADVICE WOULD BE GREATFULLY RECEIVED.